to finish the full cycle in bus tour. While on the tour, see if we would like to walk the area. After we finish 1 cycle, take 2nd round and then stop at the places we want on the 2nd round OR

select places to stop on the 1st cycle.

It would take 2hrs for 1 round. So we decided to go for #1 option, which was safer because the last bus ride’s driver ended his shift and told another customer who wanted to go to 1st stop (we were at last stop) “NO MORE”. So perhaps we could only ride one round instead hop-on/off as we like – do confirm with the tour bus company if you plan as such.

The ticket can be purchased at Exit 6 of Gwanghwamun Station (Seoul Subway Line 5). When we went on a Saturday, there was exhibition about the countries and agreement to help Korea from Korean War. Not sure if it’s permanent display.

Being so gungho in buying the bus tour, we didn’t go to Gwanghwamun’s palace and surrounding area! We didn’t even realise this till next day LOL.

The first palace was Deoksugung (also known as Gyeongun-gung). It’s less than 3min drive from Gwanghamun! Nearest train station to Deoksugung is City Hall, if you want to go to this palace without taking tour bus.

Being the 1st palace we went to, we ooo wah, nice deco, nice paint, went to find cherry blossom (!) and finished the 1st place in 45min with dilly dally. We could have finished it within 30min if not for too-much-selfie-wefie-ahem (not me ahem) and taking pic of almost every tree (me).

There’s also Integrated Ticket of Palaces at 10K Won which you can use within a month for these palaces:Gyeongbokgung (3,000 won) Deoksugung (1,000 won) Changdeokgung (3,000 won) including Huwon Secret Garden (5,000 won) Changgyeonggung (1,000 won) Jongmyo Shrine (1,000 won)

If you visit all the site listed above individually, it would cost you 14,000 won. Purchasing the pass will save you 4,000 won. Info fromIntegrated Ticket of Palaces.

The headphones provided in the bus tour that we took only listed the stop name and the sound was too unclear to make any sense so I didn’t listen to it. Bus driver or a recording would announce each stop. If your ticket is lost, you’ll have to buy new ticket. Keep your ticket so that you can hop in. The ones we took were quite punctual, give or take 5min delay in some stops due to more customers or traffic.